ISEA2012 STEMArts Competition: Design Your Future

From a 516 ARTS press release...

516 ARTS announces the opening of the ISEA2012 STEMArts Competition: Design Your Future. This competition, open to New Mexico students grades 6-12, will bring the STEM+Art concepts explored through ISEA2012 directly to our schools around the state. Through the competition, schools will take part in this international symposium and engage in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Art.

What is ISEA2012?

In the fall of 2012, 516 ARTS and a group of New Mexico and regional organizations will present  ISEA2012 Albuquerque: Machine Wilderness (www.isea2012.org), a symposium and season-long series of public events exploring the discourse of global proportions on the subject of art, technology and nature. The prestigious ISEA symposium is held every year in a different location around the world, and has a 30-year history of significant acclaim. It is an international honor for Albuquerque to be selected as the first host city in the U.S. since 2006.

The ISEA2012 symposium will consist of a conference based in Albuquerque (September 19 – 24, 2012), an exhibition at 516 ARTS and The Albuquerque Museum (September 20, 2012 – January, 6, 2013), and an expansive, regional collaboration throughout the fall of 2012, including art exhibitions, public events, performances and educational activities. This project will draw a wealth of leading creative minds from around the globe, and engage our local community through in-depth partnerships. The ISEA2012 Education Program includes the STEMArts Competition, the Intel Education Day of the conference, the Visiting Artists Teaching Program, artist residencies, exhibition tours for schools and a STEMArts curriculum for teachers and students.

About the competition

Participating students in the ISEA2012 STEMArts Competition will submit a visualization that best expresses their ideas for the future by exploring the overall conference theme of “Machine Wilderness,” or sub-themes of Power, Transportation, Wildlife, The Cosmos and Creative Economies. Students are encouraged to imagine a future where art, science and technology merge and anything is possible. The visualization could be something abstract that communicates a feeling, or something more specific such as a city plan of the future, or a car design. It may be clothes of the future, a sustainable house design, a design for a school, or space exploration ideas. The sky is the limit!

The following prizes for students will be awarded:

• Best of show
• Best aesthetic/design
• Most innovative
• Most humorous
• Most likely to change the world
• Best idea for the environment
• Best idea to increase our Gross National Happiness (GNH)
• People’s choice

Best of show winner will receive a new laptop computer, and the other winners will receive netbooks and other great prizes. All of the participating students’ images will be collaged into a web based digital art piece that will be presented at ISEA2012 as a digital kiosk. The interactive piece will be developed by Agnes Chavez of Sube, Inc in collaboration with New Media and Systems Design students from New Mexico Highlands University.

Email entries for the competition digitally to:  STEMArts@isea2012.org

The image can be anything from a sketch on a napkin to a digital collage in Photoshop. We only ask that it be digitized and submitted as a JPG file. If your school does not have access to the technology you need to digitize, please contact Nick Chiarella so we can help.

For more information, please see the STEMArts Competition FAQ online at www.stemarts.com/isea2012/compete

The title of Machine Wilderness for ISEA2012: Albuquerque references the New Mexico region as an area of rapid growth and technology alongside wide expanses of open land, and aims to present artists’ and technologists’ ideas for a more humane interaction between technology and wilderness in which “machines” can take many forms to support life on Earth. Machine Wilderness focuses on creative solutions for how technology and the natural world can sustainably co-exist. Please see the attached press release for information about the sub-themes.

Scholarships for the Intel Education Day of the ISEA2012 Conference

Thanks to sponsorship support from Intel Corporation, at least 100 full scholarships are available for New Mexico teachers and students, grades 6-12 to participate in the Intel Education Day of the ISEA2012 international conference, on Sunday, September 23, 2012 in Downtown Albuquerque. Events will include lectures, performances, demos, hands-on workshops and a fabulous free Downtown Block Party for the whole family. In order to take advantage of the scholarships and attend the education-focused conference sessions on the Intel Education Day, registration must be completed at www.isea2012.org. Conference registration opens March 1, 2012. 

For conference registration information, contact Jenny McMath, ISEA2012 Conference Coordinator: 505-234-1570, jenny@kessjones.com.

For more information about the ISEA2012 Education Program, contact Nick Chiarella. ISEA2012 Education Program Coordinator: 505-577-6073, nick@isea2012.org.